2 JANUARY 1886, Page 31

Trottings of a Tender-Foot. By Clive Phillips- Wolley. (R. Bentley

and Son.)—" I never pretended to be anything but a sportsman," says the " Tender-foot " (a term which means a " newcomer ") in his Preface, when he would excuse himself for certain omissions with which the critics have found fault. This does not hinder him from pronouncing 0ff-hand in very sarcastic terms his opinion about certain difficult questions of foreign and domestic policy. As a matter of fact, he is more than he claims to be—not a politician, indeed, but a shrewd and capable observer. Sport is the motive which takes him abroad, but being abroad he concerns himself with other things ; and though the gun and the fishing-rod sometimes appear on the scene, they do not occupy-even the greater part of the volume. We may particularly commend to our readers' attention the chapter on "Old Virginia" and the "Postscript." He paid a visit to a brother settled in Virginia. There is very little sport, and the land is exhausted ; so that the advice he gives is not "to send any friend to the worst State in the Union for a young settler to make money or be happy in." In the "Postscript," California and Californian wine-growing are briefly discussed. This is not to be done without capital. Land with vines in bearing costs 2200 per acre. The net returns average from 215 to 230 per acre. Here, again, the whole matter is thus summed up :—" If you are -rich enough to come home from January to May, during which time it rains pretty regularly, you might do worse than become a Californian viticulturist." Still, xnt -thewhole,_the author's advice to.the intending emigrant is this,—"If

you are going to America to live, to make yourself a new home and take your children there, go not to the loudly-advertised States, but to what is only an extension of your own home, Canada or 'British Columbia."